More Than Words: You make me strong
by mercurial2010
Summary: Angsty and Hardcore M Stendan, Brendan POV. Set at the end of last week, Brendan's come back - what does he want to say to Ste?


**A/N:**

Helloooo! Thank you so much to everyone for the welcome backs, you're all so lovely! And thank you so much to two fandom friends in particular who's input has been wonderful, and who have made the experience of watching the show even more amazing. If it wasn't for you this fic wouldn't sound nearly like this! (I hope you know who you are, even if one of you never actually reads it ;))

**About this fic:**

So the second in the Brendan POV sex series. It's again another very long one shot. It feels very different to the other one, it's a lot more angst-ridden for a start but that's what Stendan are about right? It's set just after the tragedy of last week.

**Warning:**

This one is even more hardcore kink than the last, this is a serious warning to those that don't appreciate smut – don't read it! The next "more than words" is much less kinky, and I will be posting a more-plot less-M fic later.

Mercurial's a little nervous cos she's written about something that she's never written about before (or read before). It's erm been a learning experience! I thought it was fitting for the prompt and it's been interesting to explore their dynamic.

You know I love your words, please leave me some.

Here's for the show:

***B&S***

"Nothing like keeping a man waiting, Steven," I say as he stumbles into the darkness of his flat at eleven o'clock on a Saturday night.

He jumps like he's petrified, I never wanted him to be scared of me, but I can't reach out one hand in comfort for him or myself.

He turns on the sitting room light.

"Why the fuck are you sitting in the dark?!" He asks me. "No, right, why the hell are you even back here? Here?! You just expect to walk back into my life like you were never gone in the first place. Don't you even talk to me about waiting, when you didn't even pick up your fucking phone!" His words are rushing through alcohol and anger. I can almost feel his heart thunder.

My every cell is numb.

I thought coming back here, this place we called home, would help me breathe again. But all I've done since I got here eight hours ago is drink Scotch till the world got dark. I down another glass now.

"You're drunk!" He says in disgust.

"Could say the same about you, Steven," and he looks at me like he forgot I could read him.

I walk toward him. I can see the ghost of us in the kitchen – was it just five days ago that I was kissing him like that? Like I could feel my heart and soul were anything but broken, unfixable.

"Where were you?" I ask quietly.

"Doug and I went for some pints after work, been a proper hard week, no right why am I even explaining myself to you?! Where were _you_?!"

"You and Douglas?" The words split from me like I didn't even need to speak them, like I'm just a mess and all my flaws are open for the world to see.

All I can hear is them earlier, the love of my life sharing a secret joke with his husband in their business and laughing like they were making music. I stood unnoticed and alone outside the Deli. There was only a window between my Steven and I, but glass was never more insurmountable, unbreakable.

"Yeah jealous! Add that to your list and all." He laughs, shaking his head like he's given up on me.

He walks around the kitchen, putting on the kettle, picking up an empty glass, citing an inventory of my flaws like they were of no importance to anyone but him. "Jealous and insensitive and thoughtless and psychopathic and an idiot and a thug-"

I take his words into my mouth, wrapping my hands around his neck and kissing him into silence. Those labels are futile anyway, anyone just needs to look at me to know that I'm worthless. I couldn't even help him when he was at his lowest. He rejected the only thing I could do to help, he wanted me to leave. I am worthless.

But he's not rejecting me now; he's not denying this kiss. At the pull of my teeth his mouth opens slowly like he's trying, but failing, to resist. I need him to know any resistance of us is inevitably futile. I wrap my fingers through his hair tighter, pulling him to me.

His hands press my shoulders and the touch runs through me like pins and needles, like my skin is awakening. And God I want this. I want the tight fricative pull of our love to rip through and make me human again. He's always let me be so fucking powerful. I need that now.

After Walker, Steven told me that there was nothing that I couldn't overcome,

"_You're Brendan Brady aren't ya? There's nothing that could be so bad that you don't come out on top."_

I need him to look at me like that again and wrap that belief through our kiss. I need him to make me feel good, feel worthy, feel powerful. I need him to make me _feel_.

My tongue battles harder in the quest for vitality.

I feel tight little whimpers being breathed into my mouth. I feel the tremble of his body against mine. And I fall into the sensations of Steven, my Steven.

I crush him against the wall. I run my hands from his hair over his throat, absorbing the pulse of blood beneath my fingertips, sensing his adams apple bob for air.

In this moment he snatches me away from the abyss and back into the roaring, claiming, passionate light that will always and only ever be us.

I trap his kiss against the wall, not giving him any space but me. He's the only remedy I have, I need him all. I rush my hands all over him, feel every part of him I can reach.

His hands pull against my hair and rip me away. Breath struggles in and out between his lips like he's deprived. Deprived only of him I push my lips to his jaw, bite his skin and pull that fluttering pulse point between my teeth.

I breathe him in, the scent of his shampoo and the Deli and that scent that will always be only him. I taste him, I touch him, I smell him, I need him to pulse through every vein.

I watch his eyelashes fluttering open like he's growing accustomed to a new world.

"Brendan-" he breathes, his voice trembling.

He looks like he goes to say something but it dissolves into his kiss as his hands pull me back to him again. His mouth clashes with mine, our tongues unable to part.

I trace down the slight muscle in his arm, reaching down his side, grabbing at his perfect arse and reaching for the hardness I know our kiss has caused.

He needs me. Now.

I cup him, mould him, and his hand slams against the wall as if on impulse. The jolt rushes through me and I pop the button on his fly, needing him exposed and vulnerable for me. He pulls away again with a whimper.

His eyes flash with fire, "why can't I hate you? Why do I have to love _you_?"

It would be easier for both of us if he did, but it would take away the only place in this wretched world where I belong. So as he kisses me like I'm his oxygen I moan into his mouth a plea that he never stops.

My hand presses against his warm yielding flesh, feeling the prick of his treasure trail and then my fingers grasp what they need, pumping life into his cock. He bangs his head back against the wall, tilting his face away from me, his jaw tensing at my body's onslaught of his.

I pull his collar with my teeth, grabbing hold of the edge of his shirt, opening him for my gaze only. I smile as some of those small white buttons break free and pop into the kitchen, ricocheting off the walls. I need to tear at the uniform of that fucking Deli. I want to rip from him everything that isn't me, leave him lost in a world I'm not a part of. I can't let him leave me again.

I press my face to his exposed beautiful chest, scratching my tash over his skin, down over the curves of his muscles. I leave his trousers and boxers bunched around his thighs.

I pull back.

My hand works his cock faster and I feel precum pool.

The air is clogged and heavy, full of anticipation and long withheld sighs.

I just look at him. The fire dominating those blue irises, the kiss bruises of his lips. He has never looked more wild, more beautiful, like I've freed him.

I want to consume him.

Still, every time he looks at me it's like he's not quite sure who I am.

My lips tilt into my moustache the way I know makes his insides purr. I stick my fingers in my mouth and I watch him bite his lip at the anticipation of a touch. I flick my thumb over the head of his cock and just as he's whimpering from that I stick fingers right up inside him. Three, and his walls clench at the invasion of more than he can take, but I need him to know nothing but me.

"Fucking hell!" He moans and his tongue turns it into a whimper as my fingers bend just so.

He always melts into nothing but rushing words as I do this to him. Like I have taken every essence of his self-control, it's that easy for him to let go. And when he gets close, closer, it's like those words come directly from his heart and they have never once made an appearance in his brain. He was like that when he first told me he loved me earlier than either of us could take, and it's like that now.

"I can't….believe….your AH! back, Brendan…I proper thought….I'd never….see you oooooh ….fuck! Why did you have to leave?"

His eyes catch mine, ice blue, and that question stains everything in this room. A permanent mark that I'm a failure.

But still he lets me take his kiss, his body my possession. I train our embrace slower, needing him to tear and fracture.

He undoes my belt, my jeans; and then his hands are on my cock, and my moan is long and hard. I forgot what it was like to have another man's hand on my cock, and not just another man, this man.

"Steven."

His cooking calluses pull at my susceptible skin. His hands don't quite fit around, like my cock is too large for him. And he does those little tricks, his fingers playing like he's fluent in me. Like my body is a dead language and it's only him who speaks every word.

There's this smile on his lips like he's just now remembering how good this is.

"Do you want me to suck you?" He asks all rhetoric and sass.

I don't let him know that his words have ripped my breath from me, that his voice and his eyes and his smile possess every cell. I grip is head and push him down, as he kneels in front of me, submissive and obeying. He deep throats me quickly and that warm soft damp touch is almost my undoing.

I grasp his head tighter, blocking his movements as I let my hips do the work, fucking that pretty little mouth. His beautiful eyes water as he looks up at me, and I know this is too hard, that his jaw is aching, that he's barely keeping control of his reflexes but I can't stop now.

I'm not human anymore.

The first trip of that tongue over my head is enough to have my hips juddering. I moan his name and he looks at me like just my voice is pushing him closer to his shattering orgasm. I watch his eyes smile and he takes his hand behind himself and fucks himself with those dainty fingers, twisting in and pumping.

He loves this, sucking me as he brings himself off. We've lost many Sunday mornings this way. And he looks fucking amazing every time he does it, like he's just living in the now, released entirely to this moment.

But I can't come like this tonight, I need to be inside him, I need to feel those hard walls around my cock and the constricting squeeze of his orgasm.

"I'm going to fuck you now, get up," and he does so complicity quickly.

I snatch his kiss for mine again. Tasting the bitterness of me in him. And he moans as I wrap my arms around his back, pulling our groins together, causing the friction I know will shatter his mind. His nails are digging into my shoulders like I'm the only thing he can hold onto. We shuck out of our trousers and I part from the kiss for a moment to bring my top over my head.

He pulls me close to him and I feel so much within that first chest press. The shake of his slight muscles as he dissolves into me. The thrash of his heart chasing mine. But the thought that snags my mind is the coldness of my cross digging into him.

My cross against his chest.

And I remember that hospital, seeing him broken and weak, and the danger of that uncontrollable abyss without him. The desperation of his apocalypse. I feel a whimper rip from my very soul, and he steps back with consolation in his gaze.

But I don't want his words; I need to forget that there has ever been anything but him. I want us to forget an outside world and live only within each other.

I turn him around and push him forwards into the table. His hands grip the edge as his hips bruise, but there's no pained whimper, he just squats his butt backward, welcoming me. I grab the condom from my pocket, tearing it open with my teeth but his hands stop mine.

"No!"

He snatches the protection away and chucks it to the other side of the room.

He drops his hips back again.

I'm overcome with the power of those memories when I fucked him bareback. The heat and the intimacy and the sheer SoCloseNeverFeltSoFuckingClo se of my cock unsheathed, unprotected in his arse. I screwed him the whole day we found out we were safe.

I need to get us there again. I grip my nails into his hips, worshiping the white half-crescents I leave in his tanned skin, and I push into him.

His head slams onto his arms on the table. His muscles convulse immediately and he's never been so fucking tight. And in that instant, with the head of my cock held in the vice of his arse I realise I forgot lube. All that's easing this for him is my old spit in his arse and his on my cock, but I as go to pull away his hands block my movements.

"I'll get used to it."

"I'm not going to hurt you," I promise as I start to withdraw.

But all he does is laugh; this bitter cold laugh like it comes from no place of good.

"Brendan I'll proper get used to it. Get in me."

I do as he says; sliding in with more care, going gradually deeper as his muscles relax. And then my mind is nothing but splinters of him, of Fuck and so fucking tight, and hot and JustGodYes.

But even when I'm fractured I know I can't hurt him, not like this.

I slide back out gently, feeling the stretch of my skin inside him, and ease back in. Screwing him softly. It takes him a moment until he opens his eyes, twisting his head so he can look at me, and there's just one word in those eyes

What?!

So I snap my hips harder and he moans accepting all I have to give him. I slide my fingers through his quiff and he lets me yank him up to me. Pushing myself in deeper. He turns to look at me like I'm the most miraculous thing he's ever seen, like there is nothing in me that is not Godlike and I dedicate my mouth to a breathy kiss. I would give him my world for that look every day.

I push my arm up over his shoulder, grabbing onto the jut of his rib as I fuck him. My breath is hot in his ear. I create our rhythm as hard and fast, urged on by those moans that are torrential from his lips.

His head tilts forward. I feel his breath rush against my arm and I want it inside me. I want to know every sense of him like this, lost for me. I place my fingers against his lips feeling the heavy fast pull and push of his breath. He sucks my middle finger into his mouth and bites hard.

I tilt my hips and get that part of him that makes him moan. I snap my hips harder for him and he gasps with each exploitation of his prostate.

I get lost in the sounds and the feel and the smell of him so fucking open for me. And I'm so bloody close.

"Brendan," I can tell by the moan of my name that he is too. "Please."

"Hold yourself up," I say as I let go of everything apart from his hips, needing to drive us home.

His arms buckle as soon as they reach the table, and his head slams to the wood.

"I, I can't-" he whimpers, his tone a cry, "please, I need-"

I didn't want him to come like this. I wanted him to climax from just the feel of me inside him, but I'm so close and we don't have time for that now. Tomorrow I'll wake him up by sucking him, and when he's just awake and newly open I'll make him ride my cock and bring himself off from just the way we join. Not now though, we need this now.

I wrap my hand around his cock, and he moans with eternal gratitude. I pump as hard and as fast as my hips are going and we chase this climax together.

I feel the low tremble start within him and I become nothing but impulse.

I need to know what he's like when he's truly wild. I said I wouldn't do this with him, he's too vulnerable to risk, but I need this.

"Do you trust me?" I ask.

"Wha'?"

"Like this. Do you trust me like this?"

"Course, Brendan-"

"Then don't struggle."

I press my hand to the back of his neck, my fingers wrapping tight into his jugular. He fights initially, my name falling from his mouth in a soft whimper. But I feel the moment I diminish the oxygen supply to his brain.

One…two… I focus solely on the count, three…four…five.

I let him go, and he inhales and coughs coming back to me. And then there's the climax. The beautiful, intense, earth shattering, GodSoBeautifullyWildNothingH eldBack climax. He comes hard, so fucking hard, like he's barely remembering to breathe. His entire body shaking through each ripple. His walls hug me so tight all I can do is collapse onto him as I give him everything I have inside me, his name on my lips.

"Jesus Christ," he whimpers the moment he stops.

His whole body shakes and I wrap him with mine, trying to keep him strong. I press my lips onto his neck, it's a taste more than a kiss, and I savour the salt of his sweat, our sex.

We cool together.

I keep within him for as long as I can, and the moment my body leaves his I feel his absence like I've lost a limb.

I collapse down onto a chair, weak without him.

He pulls himself up and doesn't look at me when he leaves the room.

Never in my life have I been a snuggler, sex is sweaty and dirty and who wants to hug after that? But Steven has always, and I feel his absence now. I want nothing but his plea to be held, regardless of how many times I've found it irritating.

All I can do until he returns is focus on not calling him back.

He chucks a flannel at me, and as I raise an eyebrow to question it all he does is look at my hand, covered with him. No words are permitted between us and I don't have any to give.

Our come downs have always been loving, almost from the first; limbs sleeping within limbs. But not tonight. This is cold and clinical and I need his warm trembling body in my arms. I place a hand on his hips to tempt him into my lap but he just steps away.

I note with worry that he hurts when he walks, I knew I gave it to him too hard. I run the tip of the warm flannel over his arse, between the cheeks. He whimpers in sensitised comfort as I stroke him gently and I smile as I see his legs part, granting me more access. He stands for me, so fucking beautifully, shining in a sex glow. I press my flannel clad finger into him and he moans delightfully, stepping closer to me. I keep my touch gentle, soft short strokes. I see his cock regain it's power. He's almost ready to go again. I will lay him down and suck him this time, let him know my touch in every cell of his body, bring him back home to me.

I bend my finger to his prostate and he moans, arching back.

"Let's go to bed," I whisper.

There's stillness.

And then he grips my hand and pulls away. He picks up our clothes, placing mine on the table, as he shoots me a look like I'm inhumane. I don't ask if I should follow him as he leaves.

When he comes back he passes me my biggest jumper and he's wearing my hoody, the blue one with the white cords. I forgot how good he looked in my clothes. How good it was to _know_ he was in my clothes.

A few weeks ago we were getting ready for bed and as he stepped out of his khaki trousers I realised he'd been wearing my boxers all day long. He laughed, bold as brass, told me the next day was laundry day and asked me sassily why I thought he'd been going through more boxers than usual these last few weeks. And then he shrugged like wearing my clothes was the most natural thing in the world. That night he left those boxers on as I fucked him.

I knew then that we were as close as two people could get, that we shared everything. Now as he stands up against the sink, in my hoody but without words, it feels like he's only ever been a stranger.

He makes coffee and places it down in front of me, a sign that he still remembers me. He sits next to me, and I stare at the chamomile teabag in his cup, I have no idea who he is.

"Was that…" he asks, as he rubs at my fingerprints on his neck, tending to my imprint "right, I don't even know what it's called."

"Asphyxiophilia, otherwise known as Erotic Asphyxiation, breath control, yes."

"That's proper dangerous Brendan!"

I have no words for him; he should know every second of his life with me is dangerous.

His hands tend to his cup of tea, his gaze diverted. "You've done it before?"

"A couple of times," I say my mind only able to process him. "You liked it." I tell him that I know the signs of his body.

"You should have asked, it's proper dangerous." He repeats.

The early morning world grows a little lighter and this smile rises on his lips like he's forgetting to be mad.

"It was proper good though," he adds and he looks at me like he's forgiving me for more than just the roughness.

We sit still.

Silence stretches until it's a blockade between us and I know I need to answer the question he asked before the life sucks out of this room.

"You didn't need me; I left cos you didn't need me."

"I didn't…" he starts like he can't understand the words. "No, you're right actually, I mean my kids had been taken away from me, right I was completely alone. I proper didn't need my boyfriend then did I, me? Not when I was…like that."

"And now you're better," I show him my proof that he's better off without me.

"No Brendan I'm not better. I'm not…" his fingers are shaking around the porcelain.

His gaze grows gradually up me and I feel every inch.

His voice is small, "how can I be when I've still lost you?"

He looks at me like he wants me to say something but I've lost the power of speech.

"I'm sorry-" he says finally, taking the apology I should be giving him. "Look I'm really sorry I didn't believe you about the drugs, right, I just wasn't really thinking."

"It doesn't matter anymore," I say my mind so far away from the cocaine and revenge that I can barely remember it.

He looks at me like I've devastated him, like I've told him his world is ending.

He takes a sip of that tea that must be stone cold.

"OK," he nods, inhaling like from somewhere in this cold Godless room he can build strength. "OK, it's fine. I'll be fine. You can still stay here tonight like, if you don't wanna go home."

I stare at him like he's talking a foreign language and I don't know the words – I thought I was home.

"I mean we don't have to share a bed or ought, there's the kids room in't there and I know you'll be wanting to move out tomorrow but-"

"What?!" I missed the turning into goodbye, "are we done here?!"

"It's what you want" he says the words like he's telling it to his heart, and then his gaze catches mine. "It's not?"

I don't remember the last time I wanted to be without him – does he not know that?

"It doesn't matter anymore you said, you just said-"

"I was talking about the drugs!" I say pulling my chair next to his, the sound echoes like this room's empty. "Jesus Christ I was talking about the drugs! Steven you-"

And he looks at me like he honestly doesn't know the next words that are going to come, that he doesn't have the faintest idea how I feel about him. And I know I have to tell him now, colour these emotions that I don't have words for.

"-You matter to me."

It would be easier if I didn't feel these things, if I hadn't ever started – if I'd never met him. But I can't close myself off now; I'm in far too deep.

Tears blink behind those long lashes and all I want to do is kiss him, tell him these things in our foreheads press the way I always used to. But when my actions have left him so lost, so without hope, all I can use are my words.

"Steven, for fucks sake, you matter to me. And this can't be over, do you understand me? I can't lose this, I can't lose you."

A hint of a past smile grows into his eyes and I feel my lips say words straight from my heart.

"I don't wanna sleep in a bed that you're not hogging, I don't wanna wake up and not hear your tone-deaf songs in the shower, I don't wanna know of a home that doesn't have you and I don't ever want to kiss someone who isn't you, not now, not ever."

He sighs, his eyes still barely reaching mine. He starts to come close to me slowly and kisses my lips like he's hesitant, like he doesn't quite know if he can trust.

I wrap my hand around his neck, gently reassuring but letting him guide this moment.

He pauses his forehead against mine, just looking at me.

He waits for more.

"There is nothing without you," I speak from experiences I wish I never had.

He crashes our lips together, kissing me properly and I calm him with our kiss, comfort him in our embrace. How did I miss that he was so broken?

He pulls back to our foreheads rest.

"You love me?" He asks like it's a doubt.

"I've never stopped."

"I thought… You never did _it_ like that before, not for ages right, and I'd thought you'd gone, I thought it meant you'd left me."

Oh God no.

"It's because I was coming back to you, because I needed you. Steven I missed you so fucking much."

And he smiles at me like he's grateful he's been forgiven, but this is all wrong, so fucking wrong.

"It's the things I did to you, the way I messed up after the kids left, that's what was wrong. _You _have to forgive me, not the other way around."

"No, I know, right, I know you did them things cos you didn't know what else, and cos you were hurting too, I know that."

"I left you!" I say, pulling his hand into mine. I need him to know that he deserves so much more than this. "I fucking threw a glass at you!"

He breathes, neglecting eye contact for a moment, like he's looking into his soul. "Do you remember what you said when Amy left the last time? Right, you said no-one could understand that darkness like you."

I remember that night so well, the kiss that he almost pressed to me, the look in his eyes like I could cure him, make the pain easier for him. The way my soul crumbled as he listened to my order that he went back to Douglas.

"That's true, right?" It's not really a question. He smiles at me like he couldn't hear any answer but yes, and all I want to be is everything he needs.

The thought of trying to be everything to him, of changing so I can be, ricochets around the emptiness inside me and I feel him within every pore. He builds me up and makes me strong. I dedicate my being to him.

"Steven-"

"Just don't leave me again."

"Never," I make a promise of eternity and press it into a kiss.


End file.
